


the gods took them back (the problem with having a heart)

by Dancyon



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Foxes, Graphic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Ravens, Slavery, Suicide, The gods meddle, Trojan War AU, Violence, achilles!riko, crazy!riko, graphic death, implied riko/jean, or prequel, soa au, this will probably have a sequel one day, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 18:03:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12731550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancyon/pseuds/Dancyon
Summary: Riko was supposed to be the best warrior in this 10 year long war against theFoxes, but the more Riko fell from grace and became a shadow of his self,the more Kevin's friends died and Kevin became a legend.The Song of Achilles AU.





	the gods took them back (the problem with having a heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the TW people, this is dark. Also, this was created for the @exyordeath-zine on tumblr and my wonderful artist was @still-waiting-for-godot. You can also find this on my tumblr dancyon.tumblr.com

Prince Kevin didn’t know when things changed. He didn’t know if one day he woke up and realized it or if deep down he’d always known. 

Prince Riko wasn’t himself anymore, but he was a shapeless, sharp teethed shadow at the corner of his eye. 

The war had been going on for years, centuries, eons. There was no end, no hope, no light.   
The soldiers were becoming restless and hungry for the shores of their homes. Their eyes were blank and heavy after all this time, but their mouths were sewn shut by fear of Prince Riko’s knife, of King Ichirou’s cool gaze and omnipresent mind, of the Butcher’s unstoppable rage. 

Even Prince Nathaniel had learned to mind his tongue more often than not, which was a vast improvement. Nathaniel was perhaps the sharpest mind their army possessed when it came to tricking their enemy and surviving this bloody and endless war that the Gods begged for, but Riko was still Hero of the Ravens, he was still their number one fighter.  
Nathaniel’s rebelliousness wouldn’t have ended well if his spirit hadn’t been curbed since the beginning. 

“Let us do all the work, why don’t you Princess Kevin?” Nathaniel’s voice mocked behind him in a Northern dialect that few knew around them. 

“Prince Riko won’t be happy to hear you speak a language he doesn’t understand.” Kevin answered in the same language, pushing those dangerous thoughts out of his mind. 

The Gods might whisper them in Riko’s ear just to have some entertainment. 

With a scoff, the younger warrior set down on the ground behind the tent Kevin was leaning against, mirroring his posture.

“Riko is preoccupied with the Foxes.” 

With a smirk, he bit into the old apple ration he had brought with himself. Something flashed through his eyes, there and gone in an instant.

Kevin frowned, a voice nagging him in the back of his mind. Nathaniel had been awfully quiet lately. Or as quiet as someone like him could be, all fire and melted silver in his veins. 

Averting his eyes, he let it go. The Butcher’s son was a grown man and he knew how to take care of himself. Most of the time, at least. He wouldn’t be unnecessarily reckless.

“Nonetheless, you shouldn’t.” he repeated.

“Well why are you answering in the same language then?”Nathaniel shot back with a glare and a softer smirk, more private joke than biting and vicious anger.

“The Foxes won’t keep him preoccupied forever, Nathaniel.” He couldn’t recognize his distant voice when he talked.

“They don’t have that kind of manpower. The end is close.”

So close. What would they come back to? Ruined houses and a Riko with only half of his soul still intact?

“Is it really?” His friend’s voice brought him back to the present.

Nathaniel’s eyes were averted towards the sky of the late afternoon, his expression terrifying.

Kevin’s blood ran cold.

“Nathaniel,” he started, something like dread filling his heart. “What –”

Brusquely, he was interrupted.

“Don’t worry about it Kevin. I’m fine.”

Getting up, he tossed the rest of his apple to the side and turned to leave before stopping suddenly and turning his head back to stare at the taller one.

“Why don’t you go check on Jean?” he asked quietly. 

Kevin’s blood ran cold again. 

 

Jean, as it turned out, had just been eaten alive and spit raw by something that looked a lot like the bite of Riko’s knifes.

Hands shaking, Kevin filled another cup of cheap, disgusting wine and threw it back in one go, his nervous energy rendering him unable to sit still.

Finally, after enough mead had mellowed his panic, he turned to the hunched and bruised figure on the bed.

“What did you do?”

It came out with more accusation than Kevin had intended, but it was already out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Jean was too tired to glare at him, he simply fumbled with the edge of his bloodied chiton. “Nothing.”

“Jean –” Kevin started through gritted teeth. 

Jean and Nathaniel were his responsibility, but he couldn’t do anything to protect them.

“Kevin.” The Northerner answered almost pityingly. 

“I’m war spoils and I belong to him. I didn’t need to do anything for him to take his anger out on me.”

“Why was he angry then?” Kevin finally snapped.

“The war, of course. Minyard destroyed one of our battalions in the East all by himself. King Ichirou is starting to doubt Prince Riko’s ability   
to defeat the Foxes.”

Riko must have been furious, that special brand of anger that consumed him flesh and bones, the one he reserved for his brother, unable to do anything else except bow and obey.

“Yes.” Jean agreed to the unspoken sentiment. 

Riko ten years ago wouldn’t have taken his anger out on his subordinates. But Riko from ten years ago was so far away in the past that Kevin was starting to doubt his existence.

“The King threatened to give me to someone else if he doesn’t find a solution soon.”Jean’s tired and defeated voice brought him back to   
reality, and he was filled with horror.

“He will kill you if King Ichirou tries to take you away.” He said with perfect clarity and surety. 

If there was one thing that Riko hated, it was when someone tried to take something from him. He would rather break his toys to pieces himself.

“Yes.” Jean said again, indifferent. There was very little that interested him lately, and his own life was not one of those things. On his list   
there were only Kevin and Nathaniel, sometimes Thea, sometimes watching the Sun and praying for Apollo like his father before him in the temples of his land. 

Kevin left him there, eyes lost watching the roof of the medical tent and thinking of the Sun and his God.

 

Seven days later, Jean could finally sit up in bed on his own, but Riko’s rotten mood hadn’t gotten any sweeter. His aim was true and his sword was lethal, but the dark cloud hovering around him was killing the soldiers’ morale.

They had started whispering again, low and scared, malcontent jumping through the men like a plague and rendering them careless and angry.

Kevin was scared, a sense of foreboding gripping his heart. They couldn’t lose. They wouldn’t. 

He’d been praying to Athena diligently ,and he’d even sacrificed a doe for the Gods, its blood warm and thick as it painted the earth red. 

They couldn’t lose. They wouldn’t get out of this alive if they did. Riko’s fury would know no bounds.

King Ichirou would let him tear his soldiers apart while he watched on his high stands, hands unblemished and eyes ice cold. Maybe he would send his Butcher to rescind their limbs from their bodies and carve their burning flesh. 

With a shudder, Kevin wiped the sweat off his brow, his muscles aching from the exercises he had put his body through in the training rink.

Shielding his eyes with his hand he looked at the sky. The sun had just passed its highest point. Apollo would start his descent very soon, and Artemis would take her turn up in the sky.

Thinking of Artemis always made him think of Nathaniel. He wondered where he was. He hadn’t seen him around recently, which was unusual. He liked to annoy the people around himself with his loud presence and unending opinions over everything and anything.

His absence was strange during such a fragile and unsecure moment for their army. 

The familiar chill he felt lately whenever the Butcher’s son cameto mind was back. Sending a quick prayer to Athena for his fool of a friend, he turned to leave the training rink to his fellow soldiers, their dark stares glued to his back as he dried his face with a cloth one of the slaves offered him, her face blank and her hands steady. 

He was thinking about Thea, her dark skin and her fierce eyes, when his trained soldier ears picked up the conversation that two men were having.

“He should have the title, I tell you!” a soldier snapped, only to look around horrified, making sure no one had heard him. He turned back to   
his friend’s poisonous glare. 

“You fool! You don’t go around yelling such things if you want to keep your tongue in your mouth.”

“I’m just saying.” The first man continued in a much quieter voice. “Prince Kevin is simply better. We all know it. Perhaps-”

“No! Stop saying such foolish things. You will get the both of us killed.”

“I want the war to end!” he insisted in a voice that sounded almost desperate.

Kevin was trembling behind the pillar that was hiding his body from view, feeling cold all of a sudden as he realized where this was going. 

Athena, don’t let him finish his thought! 

But the idiot finished his thought, the Sun and his friend and Kevin witnesses to his stupidity. 

“Maybe if Prince Kevin were to lead us, we could be done with this endless torture sooner, and we could go home!”

They were all going to die.

 

Voices spread like wildfire when the troops were bored or tired or hungry. They needed words to stuff their empty bellies instead of meat and bread. Two hours later, the rumors found their way to Riko’s ear like they always did.

The soldier would never see his home and his land again.

The public execution would have lifted the men’s spirit in normal circumstances, or at the very least scared them enough to get back in   
line, but it had the opposite effect. The soldier had voiced what everyone had been thinking, and as Riko’s mood darkened, so did the soldiers’.

Kevin wandered around their side of the camp, restless and scared. 

Oh, how far they had fallen. The mere idea of Riko’s anger terrified him so. They had shared a cot and a sky and a single life in two. They had promised each other fame. And now here he was, out of his mind with fear and viciously, humiliatingly grateful that Riko had not taken his fury out on him.

What a wonderful warrior he was. The Gods must be so ashamed of him. Maybe his cowardice was the reason they had been losing so many battles lately. 

The Foxes’ Monster must have been something else entirely, for the Gods to favor him so. He had heard rumors that Zeus had chosen a favorite in the war, but he had believed them untrue. He wondered now, if perhaps there was some truth to it.   
Zeus had remained neutral to the conflict since the beginning, but Kevincouldn’t help himself.

What if?

With a weary sigh, he made his way towards the makeshifttemple they had erected, a sacrificial squirrel in his satchel.

He was expecting the temple to be empty as the last rays of sunshine chased each other across the sky, Apollo’s carriage finally resting after a long day. He was most certainly not expecting Nathanielto be there, crouched kneeling in front of the small altar with a candle and a wild rabbit in his hands.

The younger one tensed slightly when he felt someone enter the temple and break his privacy. Folding his arms over his lap, he turned his head slightly to look at an aggravated Kevin with narrowed eyes.

Kevin sighed in relief and exasperation.

“Should have guessed that it was you. No one else waits for the night to fall before making their offerings.” 

No one else prays to the Virgin Goddess, he meant to say, but Nathaniel already knew that. He knew Kevin like he knew his knifes, from the sharpest edge down tot he worst imperfection.

Nathaniel hummed his assent and then he went back to preparing the altar for his sacrifice, lighting the candle and pouring some goat blood over the altar before slitting the rabbit’s neck and letting its blood soak the ground and spill on his naked toes just as the twilight turned to night.

Settling down next to the redhead, Kevin stayed in respectful silence and prayed along with his friend as he prayed to the Hunting  
Goddess, words in the Northern accent slipping out. His mother’s tongue, Kevin realized. Artemis had protected a fleeing Mary, wife of the Butcher, and her small, fierce son. She had shaded them with her shadow and hidden them in her forest leaves until Ares had interfered and ripped them away from her arms. Even after all this time, Nathaniel felt safer at night when he could feel her presence andher watchful eyes.

“Keep him safe.” Nathaniel finished his prayer in the common tongue and blew on the candle to extinguish its flame.

Furrowing his brows, Kevin purified the altar and started preparing his own sacrifice to Athena, his squirrel left to the side for the moment as he lit his own candle and burned incense before grabbing the squirrel again.

He was aware of Nathaniel’s silent presence at his side, but he didn’t say anything until his sacrifice was complete, knowing better than to not offer his full and undivided attention to his Goddess.

After he was done, he laid his things aside and turned a stern look on a still uncharacteristically quiet Nathaniel.

“What have you done, Nathaniel.” His voice sounded void and dark to his own ears.

The other man twitched, uncomfortable, but he didn’t answer.

“You were not praying for Jean, were you. Or me.” The inflection of Kevin’s voice turned it into the accusation it was supposed to be.

“You certainly were not praying for your King and your Prince.”

When he remained, again, mulishly silent, Kevin stood from his kneeling position and pulled his friend with him. 

“We are not doing this in a sacred place” he ordered, “Come on.”

The younger one let himself be dragged along until they were outside of the temple, but he pulled away as soon as they were under the open moon again.

“We are not doing this at all.” He corrected, finally speaking up as he held his head high and glared at Kevin. “Stay out of this Kevin.”

With a huff, he turned to leave, but Kevin took advantage of his bigger and heavier form to keep him rooted to the spot.

“Nathaniel! Don’t be stupid. Look at what happened to Jean. You can’t-” He was roughly shoved away.

“Do not tell me what I can or cannot do, Kevin! Stay out of this.

If you’re too much of a coward to do something about your childhood best friend psychopath, then I will!”

With those last parting words, Nathaniel ran towards the welcoming forest that swallowed him whole.

 

In the days that followed, the rumors did not die down, and Riko’s eyes kept getting darker and darker, nothing like the excited boy he’d once known what felt like a lifetime ago. Someone had taken Riko’s soul in the last decade. They had smashed it to pieces, and then they had put the pieces back together in the wrong order, adding other pieces along the way: discord, fury, viciousness, jealousy, ruthlessness and everything ugly that walked the earth, every shadow and every discord the Gods dispersed on the ground.

Kevin tried to stay as far away as possible from the boy he had grown up with. He spent his days training away from prying eyes to give their men as little to talk as possible. Sometimes he went to Thea, letting her strong arms hold him afloat. Sometimes he sat with Jean as the other man went about his everyday chores, dead-eyed and quiet in a carefully crafted way. More often than not, he was unable to find  
Nathaniel and worry and weariness were eating him alive. Riko would notice his absences soon.

But Kevin had miscalculated. Riko didn’t get the chance to notice the screaming absence that was one of his main strategists. The troop’s malcontent had reached the higher ups so strongly that the King had been forced to intervene.

Kevin was no idealist. Chances were, King Ichirou had known all along, since the first word was uttered that first day. What had prompted him to act only now was unknown to Kevin, but he didn’t pretend to understand the way his King’s mind worked. Nathaniel might have been able to explain it to him, but Nathaniel’s state of mind was as questionable as the King’s or his brother’s.

Kevin supposed some things were simply genetic. Nathaniel’s craziness was a shadow of his father’s muted and less noticeable, but still ferocious and vicious. That was probably the reason why he could see through Riko like glass.

The beginning of the end started on the dawn of the fifth morning after the rumors about Kevin’s superiority had first started.

The King had called a meeting.

When Kevin entered the tent, Riko was already there, stiff backed and furious in front of the King, but some of the officers had still to show themselves to what would probably be a very painful and dangerous meeting.

From the corner of his eyes, he noticed Nathaniel’s invisible shadow enter the meeting space and settle in a hidden corner, where he could see and hear everyone.

Kevin frowned at his skittish behavior, but he quickly turned his attention away, not to draw any eyes to the younger man.

“Riko.” 

The King’s voice had not been openly insulting in the sudden quiet of the pavilion, but for property’s sake he should have used at least some sort of honorific.

Kevin was overwhelmed by anxiety as he suddenly realized where this was going. Riko’s hands curled into fists and his fingertips white where they were scraping his own skin raw.

Pity choked him when he looked at Riko, but he tried to push it down to the deepest corners of his heart. His once brother had stopped reacting well to pity and compassion a long time ago.

“I heard things have not been going very well lately for our side.”

The King waited patiently and coolly for an answer, which came soon after, his brother’s voice tightly controlled but failing to match the King’s indifferent composure.

“It is nothing but a small nuisance. A bump on the road, if you will.”

The only comment he received in return was a dismissive hum and careful scrutiny.

Kevin had foolishly believed that the meeting had been called to talk about the war and find a solution while at the same time taking Riko   
down a notch or two. He had been only partially right.

The King did not want to humiliate his brother. He wanted to completely destroy his soul and devour any life left in his eyes.

The reunion came to an end as soon as it started with King Ichirou’s next words.

“Your slaves and your goods belong to someone else now, as does my army. Kevin will be my new General.” A short, deliberate pause followed the shocking revelation. “You can leave now, brother.”

The soldiers scrambled away, terror moving their feet faster. They were smart. Riko would build a mountain of corpses and strip the life from the earth for this.

Kevin didn’t move, speechless, until Nathaniel’s cold touch on his hand brought him back to reality. He followed the man out of the tent in a daze, terrified. Riko had just been stripped of everything he had by the only man that could save or destroy him with a look, and he had just been skinned alive. His army did not belong to him anymore, his swords, his horse, his slaves.

Oh Gods, his slaves!

Finally getting out of his haze, Kevin choked out a “Jean” to a hovering Nathaniel, and they were both off towards Riko’s tent, where guards where collecting their former General’s belongings.

Jean was already out in the early morning sun, stone-faced like always, but strangely emptier.

Riko was there as well, sitting on the ground with a lowered head, hair covering his eyes. He was still like a corpse. He watched immobile as his horse was led away and Jean was pushed towards the Butcher’s tent.

Riko’s things would go to the Butcher. Riko’s people would go to Kevin. Jean was Riko’s thing.

Frozen, Kevin could only watch as one of the only people he considered a friend walked towards his end, towards the one and only man in the camp who could and would hurt him more than his previous owner.

Nathaniel’s grip on his bicep tightened until Kevin could not feel his blood circulate anymore.

 

Riko disappeared after that, and no one had the courage to look for him. Nathaniel had wandered off as well, doing whatever it was that he did these days and probably laying the road to his own demise.

Kevin went to Thea instead, needing her deft fingers in his hair and her confident lips on his. Thea had been his since they had raided the South and killed her brothers, but she had never been his. She never would be. They had spilled too much of her blood.

They had their deal, of sorts. Thea would be there with her dark skin and her fierce, painful smile. And at the end of the war, they would cross swords. Only one of them would walk away alive.

He had hoped, with time, to show her that they could find an understanding with each other. He would be good to her, and she could have whatever he had to give, but settling was not in her nature.

She might even come to love him, but she would never forgive him. She would take his blood as revenge, or she would spill her own.

His head was resting on her shoulder as she combed long fingers through his dark hair when armed men entered his tent and ripped her away from him, pulling her outside.

Kevin followed them, horrified and confused until he met Riko’s eyes. This was to be his punishment then.

Thea looked at the two of them with knowing eyes, realizing what her fate would be before Riko even spoke.

“She belongs to me now.”

Kevin trembled, his mouth opening on an instinctive response he was smart enough to keep to himself. Riko did not like being told “no”.

Helpless, he searched for Thea’s eyes, begging her to understand.

He could not go against Riko. Not even now. Not even for her presence at his eyes, or for the promise they’re made to each other.

Thea offered him a rare smile, her head held high.

Before anyone could stop her, she reached for the sword of the guard that was holding her.

The metal glistened under the sun as it tore through her flesh like butter, her hands pushing it as far as they could into her spilling guts as she wheezed for breath, blood gurgling from her mouth.

Someone was screaming, and Kevin realized that it was him when a guard grabbed his arm to stop him from running to her side.

Her face showed no regret, only content at having taken something from Riko, who was furiously shouting as well, having fallen to his knees and desperately trying to keeps her insides in her body.

The Elysium Fields welcomed their new sister as she found her final resting place in their midst, and Riko got denied yet again what he desired. She had taken the rest of her life in her hands, and now she was finally free.

 

The days that followed were dark and twisted. Riko was as violent and volatile as always, and Jean’s absence pushed him to try his limits with what his soldiers would shoulder before they snapped.

Nathaniel was, again, notoriously absent.

Kevin felt on the edge, as if the smallest push could make him tumble down the rabbit hole and never come back. Something was coming.

Three days later, Jean learned something from Thea. He limped to where the sea met the earth and he gave himself freedom, the smallest spark of life back in his clouded eyes as he begged the Gods to take him.

Apollo heard his prayer and answered.

 

After Jean’s death, Riko’s rage seemed to settle. If he could not have Jean, then no one would have him.

That was when he started paying attention to Nathaniel’s absences.

No one had heard anything during the night. No commotion, no screams, no nothing.

This is why it was such a shock when the soldiers started waking up one morning, and instead of collecting their daily rations, they huddled   
towards the executions stand.

A pyre had been prepared and a white faced, trembling Nathaniel had been strapped to it. The flames had not been lit yet, and Riko stood in front of everyone with a torch and a triumphant smile.

“Beware! This is what happens when you betray your leaders.”

With a cold smile, he gestured to a bound Nathaniel as Kevin pushed his way to the front, horrified.

“This coward has been working with the enemy! He has been meeting with the Foxes’ Monster every night. He is the reason we have been losing. And he will pay for it.”

Riko let the shocked voices die down and Kevin felt his blood leave his body all at once. No. It was not possible. Nathaniel couldn’t have –wouldn’t have!

But he was just standing without a sound, looking towards the forest with a faraway expression. He was not contradicting anything Riko was saying.

Finishing the last parting words of his speech, Riko threw the torch on the pyre an on an unresponsive Nathaniel.

Kevin screamed, all instincts of self-preservation forgotten as he dashed forward to stop the fire before Riko stopped him, pushing himto the ground.

Kevin looked at him wild eyed and scared.

“You don’t get to take this from me Kevin.” He snarled raising the hilt of his short sword and bringing it down on Kevin’s left hand with a sickening crunch. “This is mine, you do not get to take this as well!”

Kevin was so shocked that he didn’t even feel the pain in the beginning, until Riko started to bring the end of the sword down again and again, and Nathaniel’s scream started echoing in the camp, the only noise except Kevin and Riko’s breathing; Kevin’s own yelling; the crunch of the bones in his hand being disfigured without repair.

As the darkness of blissful unconsciousness reached for him, he thought that Artemis was reaching for Nathaniel right in that moment to take him back to the wild like she had done for his mother.


End file.
